Are we going "backwards" to an 1800's-style 99% poor/1% rich society?? (legal, health care)
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So you're telling me the continuous rise of statism hasn't helped, and things are actually getting worse? I bet more state control will do the trick! /sarcasm
It's so frustrating for anyone who believes in individual liberty and laissez faire these days. You watch all this news about new regulations, new laws, new barriers for employers and employees, terrible economic and monetary policy, and all of these things (from both R's and D's) that are completely opposite of what we advocate, and then when things keep getting worse as predicted, the things we support take the blame and the same garbage continues. I'm just speechless when capitalism or free markets are blamed for anything these days.
The US had laissez-faire - it was known as the Gilded Age. And it kinda sucked for most. Pretty much the OP's point.
Yes, absolutely. It started with Barry Goldwater and has been accelerating ever since. It really got going with Reagan, and then Clinton (a Democrat!) signed NAFTA, welfare reform, and went along with financial deregulation.
The New Deal is dead. We're now back to the Gilded Age and both parties brought us here. The white working class finally realized that their former party (the Democrats) abandoned them a long time ago, and so they voted for a billionaire Republican con-man in desperation.
The US had laissez-faire - it was known as the Gilded Age. And it kinda sucked for most. Pretty much the OP's point.
I think the prevailing story of US history is very warped. There's a lot to be argued, but I'll just say that very generally, the problems that are described during that time period were not due to laissez-faire, but the process of industrialization. Every emerging economy goes through similar conditions while they move from a poor agricultural society, to an emerging industrial society, and on to a wealthier one.
I almost think of it as growing pains...but those conditions always improve when the society's wealth is increased through capitalism. That's when kids can go to school rather than work, or when their parents don't need to work constantly to make ends meet. A society needs to build up the economy, and the state tends to step in and hinder that growth, which is why Marx even wrote that you must allow capitalism to create the wealth before any form of socialism can be implemented.
It's a fact that our system is...or even has...gone back to the "Newport RI of the 1890's" - the so-called gilded age.
More and more wealth is own by fewer people - and less by the masses.
As before, the populace has been brainwashed to beat themselves over the head and declare that they don't deserve anything because the Billionaire "earned it all". The only thing different is the size and scale...it's vastly bigger now.
This inequality is the root of many, perhaps most, of the problems in the USA. But how are our "leaders" in Congress trying to solve it? Of course - by giving MORE money to the wealthy.
Make no mistake. The Fix is in. Money is more important to the people that run the USA than their fellow countrymen of their entire idea of a civil society. After all, their money allows them to live in a different world than most of us do...so why should they care?
But I don't blame it on the leaders..or the wealthy. It's the people who are ignorant and bow before their rich masters. Heck, we have real Churches (tax deductible) that worship MONEY.
The wealthy class relies on this to keep their wealth. They want to keep it and prevent anyone else from coming climbing the socioeconomic ladder. They want everything all for themselves, and want the lower classes to fight over everything, which distracts them.
I almost think of it as growing pains...but those conditions always improve when the society's wealth is increased through capitalism. That's when kids can go to school rather than work, or when their parents don't need to work constantly to make ends meet. A society needs to build up the economy, and the state tends to step in and hinder that growth, which is why Marx even wrote that you must allow capitalism to create the wealth before any form of socialism can be implemented.
So we still haven't built up enough wealth to get to the improvement?
People are working longer hours. Wages are stagnant - benefits like pensions have gone away. Health care is unaffordable and our "Security State" Paranoia is stealing the money we should be using for domestic improvement.
My take is that we have a form of predatory capitalism...which takes money as it's God and the only measurement of results. A guy like Rick Scott takes the government for billions (fraud when he was CEO of united health) and we reward him by making him King.
Trump does the same with bankruptcies, screwing taxpayers and bondholders and contractors, and we also make him King.
We have industries that prey on older people, veterans of just about anyone who can be fooled or take for a ride...and it's 100% legal and even celebrated.
We have plenty of wealth. It's just that too many people are stuffing their pockets with more than they need - and others are stuffing with ill-gotten gains.
Interesting article about the unusual "choices" the working class are being forced to make in 2017 as the economy, cost of living, etc keeps getting worse and worse:
It seems we are going "backwards" in this country, it seems once most of the population is poor or has no money, it's all downhill on the slippery slope to 3rd world status. Once enough people are broke or poor, it seems the "engine" of capitalism sputters and stalls out (as spending is the "fuel"). And it's even worse this time around with the prospect of robots/automation on the horizon, on TOP of the much larger (and still growing) human population.
It's eerily/strangely reminiscent of the old crony-capitalist "robber-baron era" from pre-1900's times, are we going "full circle"?
Think about how things were back then:
- most of the population poor or servants of the rich
- kids having to work to help the household make ends meet (this one probably "coming back" soon)
- no future, no "upward" mobility, no hope to advance economically... you're born poor, you die poor
- most of the population "renting" from the rich, living in subpar housing, etc
- no unions, no safety/sanitation rules, no consumer protections, no regulation
- low/flat wages, crappy jobs, and no job security at all
- no safety nets at all, you work til' you die or hope your kids watch after you
- no healthcare, if you got hurt/sick you were out of work and thus SOL
- a tiny % of rich own it all, own everything, have all the power, etc
- previously "essential" items such as cars, hygiene products, medicine, food, etc increasingly becoming a "luxury" (as the article details )
- cronyism and corruption rule the day, "pay for play" shamelessly out in the open for all to see
Of course, Trump and his right-winger supporters don't have a problem with any of this, they in-fact favor the rich over their fellow working poor and middle-classers. They're so cold/uncaring they don't even want their fellow Americans to have a living wage (forcing those low-wage workers to subsidize their $8/hr jobs with welfare, rent vouchers, food stamps, etc). They are also anti-consumer, as evidenced by the likes of Betsy Davos and that Indian tech dude that Trump put in charge of the FCC. "Great again"?? Or is it more like "poor again"?
This all just happened in the last 6 months? Frankly you have a shameful lack of historical knowledge as well as a huge dose of partisanship. Many of these things are ridiculous crap, many others are less ridiculous but false, a few are true and a few are due to both parties.
Thankfully NAFTA as presented by the Republicans and supported by both Clintons turned things around for the American worker. But...but....but......you can't rationalize reality when your brain can only process tribe mentality...
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But...but....but......you can't rationalize reality when your brain can only process tribe mentality...
